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The American Prospect - articles by authorenDemocracy's New Momenthttp://prospect.org/article/democracys-new-moment
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"> <p><span class="dropcap">F</span>or a very long time, those of us committed to strengthening American democracy felt we were—if not voices crying in the wilderness—standing on the sidelines, stamping our feet for attention. Fights over the right to vote and other civil rights are as old as the Republic, as are efforts to restrain the influence of money in politics. But until lately, the health of democracy itself was not quite a first-tier public issue.</p>
<p>When the 2000 election showed just how important a few votes could be, we hoped this debacle would galvanize a broader movement for democracy. In March 2001, I wrote an article for this magazine entitled “Democracy’s Moment,” calling for a movement with the broad agenda of expanding voting and reining in runaway campaign spending. The closing sentence was “If the democracy movement is successful, America’s real and diverse majority will emerge and change our country for the better.” It was slightly wishful thinking, at the time.</p>
<p>Now, 14 years later, we are in even more danger, and yet there is a far greater possibility that such a movement can emerge.</p>
<p>For one thing, the electorate that was coming of age in 2000 is now a major force. My colleague, De¯mos President Heather McGhee, notes that “46 million young adults under 30 are eligible to vote, actually surpassing the 39 million eligible seniors who are.” Although young people are less likely than seniors to exercise their voting rights, polls show that the millennial generation is more averse than any other age group to the right-wing agenda, and more committed to inclusive democracy. McGhee sees mobilization of the youth vote as the democracy movement’s next great challenge.</p>
<p>On the voting rights front, we are holding our own in a pitched battle. While the right wing is determined to hold or acquire power by blocking access to the polls for millions of Americans and the Supreme Court has gutted the Voting Rights Act in its <em>Shelby County v. Holder</em> decision, the movement to expand voter registration and strengthen voting rights has had its share of victories. Two examples:</p>
<ul><li>Since 2010, 22 states have passed restrictions on voting. Through ballot initiatives and vigorous advocacy in the courts, five of these burdensome state laws are being challenged. More importantly, since 2012, 16 states have <em>expanded</em> access to the polls. </li>
<li>In 2001, only six states had Election Day voter registration; today, 11 states and the District of Columbia have adopted this reform. (A 12th state, North Carolina, recently moved to end Election Day registration; a court refused to intervene to restore it for the 2014 election, and a trial to settle the issue permanently is scheduled for next year.)</li>
</ul><p>The issues surrounding money and politics are tougher terrain. The horrifying increase in economic inequality in America and the wealth amassed by a tiny sliver of American society are poisoning our political system. Some analysts have dubbed 2014 the “Year of Dark Money.” And the Supreme Court’s equation of unlimited money and free speech (<em>What were they thinking</em>?) makes it harder to enact commonsense reforms. Still, there have been some victories at the state level:</p>
<ul><li> Several states, including Massachusetts, California, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, have passed laws strengthening disclosure of political spending.</li>
<li> Some states have adopted and protected voluntary small-donor public financing systems. Earlier this year in New York, advocates came within a whisker on Governor Andrew Cuomo’s chin of winning passage of a statewide public financing system. This effort will continue.</li>
<li>In Washington, D.C., real momentum has developed for a constitutional amendment to overturn the <em>Citizens United </em>decision and restore the ability of Congress and the states to regulate campaign spending. A week-long debate in the Senate in early September produced a 54–42 majority for the amendment—impressive, but short of the 67 votes needed for passage. This effort will also continue.</li>
<li> A petition urging the Securities and Exchange Commission to write new rules for disclosure to shareholders of corporate political spending has received more than one million comments, the most for any rulemaking in the commission’s history. The coalition backing the proposal includes major institutional investors, public advocates, and academics.</li>
</ul><p>The key to winning these issues is a truly broad and grassroots movement for democracy. We’re building one. Two years ago, leaders of the NAACP, the Sierra Club, the Communications Workers of America, and Greenpeace created the Democracy Initiative. They concluded that they could not win on their issues—civil rights, saving our health and our planet, and protecting workers’ rights—unless a strengthened democracy began to work on everyone’s behalf. At Common Cause, we have an organization with a 44-year history of fighting for democracy and a membership base of 400,000 in 35 local chapters. We intend to give this effort our best work.</p>
<p>By attacking the right to vote and unleashing big money, democracy’s enemies have turned a series of fragmented projects into a movement. It’s time, finally, for democracy’s moment.</p>
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</div></div></div>Wed, 18 Feb 2015 01:59:37 +0000221705 at http://prospect.orgMiles RapoportMcConnell’s Appeal to Millionaire Donors Makes Case for Constitutional Amendment on Political Moneyhttp://prospect.org/article/mcconnell%E2%80%99s-appeal-millionaire-donors-makes-case-constitutional-amendment-political-money
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<p>In this Feb. 6, 2014 file photo, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky walks toward the Senate chambers on Capitol Hill in Washington.</p>
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<p><span class="dropcap">H</span>e surely did not intend it, but Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has made a stunningly compelling case for a constitutional amendment allowing Congress and the states to restore sensible limits on the influence of money in politics. We appreciate his help and his clarity.</p>
<p>The good news is that the Senate will vote on just such a proposal next month, the Democracy for All Amendment (S.J. Res 19). Senators still undecided about the amendment should study Sen. McConnell’s remarks carefully.</p>
<p>Speaking to a roomful of ultra-rich political investors in June (audio <a href="http://blog.pfaw.org/content/listen-mitch-mcconnell-s-full-remarks-koch-brothers-mega-donors-summit">here</a>), McConnell voiced his delight at their collective success in unharnessing political money. “The worst day of my political life” was when then-President George W. Bush signed the McCain-Feingold law with its limits on independent political spending, he declared. <span class="pullquote-right">He paid particular tribute to industrialists Charles and David Koch, the country’s most prolific political spenders</span>: “I don’t know where we’d be without you,” he told them.</p>
<p>McConnell calls the Democracy for All Amendment radical; it is anything but. The amendment simply restores an understanding of the Constitution that was in place for at least a century until the Supreme Court began unraveling it in the 1970s. It affirms that money is not speech and that no one, however wealthy or powerful, has a constitutional right to spend unlimited sums to influence our elections.</p>
<p>A <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/docs/2014/CBS_Poll_0514.pdf">poll</a> conducted for CBS News in May found that 71 percent of Americans support reasonable limits on political spending. A <a href="http://campaignmoney.org/sites/default/files/July2014EveryVoicePoll.pdf">survey</a> taken this month in battleground states for this November’s elections—including McConnell’s home state of Kentucky—found 73 percent support a constitutional amendment.</p>
<p>The senator argues that proposals to limit political spending are aimed at silencing critics of government. Singling out Common Cause, he charges that those who favor a system that pays for campaigns with a mix of public funds and small-dollar donations from individuals are really trying to elevate Democrats and defeat Republicans.</p>
<p>Neither claim stands up to scrutiny. The Democracy for All Amendment and the spending limits it would permit would protect the First Amendment; every citizen’s right to express his or her views, however unpopular or unconventional, would remain fully intact. Corporations also would continue to speak; the amendment simply would permit sensible controls on how much they and individuals can spend to influence elections.</p>
<p>As for public financing, Republicans routinely run and win using public funds in states where voluntary public financing systems are in place. In my home state of Connecticut, GOP gubernatorial candidate Tom Foley has opted to run on public financing this year; Arizona Governor Jan Brewer used her state’s public financing system in her victorious 2010 campaign. The “clean elections” or “fair elections” systems in these states encourage candidates of all parties to focus on issues important to the general public rather than the parochial concerns of a handful of funders.</p>
<p>The real radicals are those who argue that their free speech rights include the right to use their wealth—corporate or individual—to drown out the voices of other Americans. They view the <em>Citizens United </em>decision, which invited corporations to spend freely on our elections, as—in Sen. McConnell’s words— having “leveled the playing field for corporations.”</p>
<p>The American people know better.</p>
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</div></div></div>Thu, 28 Aug 2014 08:00:36 +0000220844 at http://prospect.orgMiles RapoportChallenging the Myths of the Libertarian Righthttp://prospect.org/article/challenging-myths-libertarian-right
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"> <p>The emergence of Rand Paul as a leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination marks an important turning point: Extreme libertarianism has entered the mainstream of American politics.</p>
<p>This shift has been coming for 30 years, a period of growing attacks on government as "the enemy" combined with extolling the laissez-faire idea that the free market can solve all our problems.</p>
<p>These attacks have not emerged out of thin air. Billions of dollars have been spent by corporations, foundations, and wealthy individuals to fund a large conservative policy and media infrastructure on the right, led by think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, and the American Enterprise Institute.</p>
<p>In recent years, though, the right has moved even further to the right, as more base Republican voters have embraced libertarian ideology and deep-pocketed funders like the Koch brothers have put more resources behind promoting this extreme worldview. Meanwhile, a new generation of young libertarian politicians—including not just Rand Paul, but Ted Cruz, Paul Ryan, and others—has put a polish on positions that once were considered fringe.</p>
<p>The good news is that rising libertarianism is being met with rising pushback. The financial crisis and a prolonged economic downturn have spotlighted the dangers of deregulation and a hands-off approach to an economy that so clearly is not working for ordinary Americans.</p>
<p>Over the next year, Demos aims to sharpen and amplify the growing challenge to libertarianism. In concert with one of our strong supporters, Gordon Gamm, we are launching a concerted effort to critique and discredit libertarian ideas.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.demos.org/gordon-gamm-initiative" target="_blank">Gordon Gamm Initiative</a> (GGI) will have two components. The first is a series of reports that will look at key libertarian ideas and unpack them in ways that show how shallow and unworkable they are. Demos won’t be able to counter every bad economic idea being promoted on the right. But we can and will take on some of the central myths of libertarianism.</p>
<p>The most dangerous of these myths is that the free market alone can ensure a stable and productive economic system. In a paper to be published this fall, Demos Distinguished Fellow Robert Kuttner will credit business and the market for its creative force of economic growth. But the paper will make a strong argument that excessive reliance on the market to perform economic activities not only leads to inequality; it also leads to economic inefficiency and inevitable economic crashes. Using historic and current examples, Kuttner will show how wrong the libertarian prescription is for America and why we need a proper balance between government and the market.</p>
<p>Demos will also critique the “market knows best” philosophy by looking at the financial sector, where libertarian ideas have been applied in ways that produced disasters like the crash of 2008, but also, every day, produces deeply distorting effects on the economy. While Wall Street is supposed to serve Main Street by mobilizing capital for productive purposes, deregulation has led to the opposite: Wall Street has been extracting wealth from the real economy to serve its own ends. This fall, Wallace Turbeville and Kuttner will publish a report showing how tighter regulation of Wall Street is a key to both stabilizing and growing the U.S. economy. </p>
<p>Finally, Demos will directly counter another dangerous libertarian myth, which is that market actors can self-regulate, and be trusted to safeguard the public interest without oversight from government. Nearly every day brings evidence that contradicts this myth, with an unending stream of news stories of how corporations do harm to workers, consumers, investors, or the environment in pursuit of the bottom line. But too often the bigger picture lesson of these abuses is not hammered home: namely, that we need active government oversight of the private sector, and we need to protect and strengthen the safeguards Americans have put in place over the years to insure the health of food and drugs, the effectiveness of safety systems in the workplace, and financial regulations that balance the interests of consumers and the public against the needs of business. </p>
<p>In the coming year, Demos will publish a paper by Distinguished Senior Fellow Michael Lipsky that makes exactly that broad point. The paper will show that effective, calibrated regulation improves our health, our well-being, our safety, and our lives. Regulation also helps businesses by guiding them to compete in ways that enhance the value of their products, and clarifies the rules under which they must operate. Lipsky will contrast these outcomes to the negative consequences of deregulation.</p>
<p>The second component of the GGI will be an ongoing, continuing effort to spotlight the failures and myths of libertarianism, responding to new political and policy developments in the run-up to the 2014 election, where libertarian ideas and candidates are sure to figure prominently. We will produce a weekly blog on PolicyShop that will highlight the failures of libertarianism day in and day out.</p>
<p>We are convinced that the Gordon Gamm Initiative at Demos will contribute significantly to public understanding of the deep flaws of libertarian, free-market fundamentalism, and will make a consistent case that there is a better way that is much more productive for our economy and our country. </p>
<p>So, stay tuned, and stay connected.</p>
</div></div></div>Wed, 21 Aug 2013 16:24:08 +0000218539 at http://prospect.orgMiles RapoportA New American "demos"?http://prospect.org/article/new-american-demos
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"> <p>Standing on the mall Monday among the great and diverse crowd who came to celebrate the second inauguration of the President, I reacted strongly to two aspects of the day. The first was to the feeling produced by the crowd, to the moment itself. The second was something else, something perfectly clear: a new American “<em>demos</em>” has arrived.</p>
<p>The <em>demos</em> of today, on display on the mall, was remarkable—a sea of people, supremely diverse in race, in age, in income levels, but united in the joy of the moment and in an ongoing sense of possibility for the future. It was a <em>demos</em> that stands in the cold and in long lines, not just at the inauguration but on Election Day through the night to exercise their rights as citizens. This is a new <em>demos</em> that demands that its <a href="http://www.policyshop.net/home/2013/1/8/the-changing-us-electorate.html">diversity be more than simply cosmetic</a>, but reflected in public policies that are more broad-based, inclusive, and committed to equality than those who have come before.</p>
<p>And that breadth was fully reflected in the President's speech, one that celebrated the values that have long animated the progressive movement. He called out the inequality whose character is that "a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it.” The President said that America’s prosperity must be built on a rising middle class, and he declared, as we at <a href="http://www.demos.org/">Demos</a> know, that a growing middle class doesn't happen by accident. It is the result of smart public policy, a respect for the dignity of labor, and a commitment by an active and empowered government to move on behalf of all its citizens. We did it once, and we can—and must—do it again to ensure that our future middle class looks like America.</p>
<p>I was struck by the forcefulness with which the President repudiated economic Darwinism. He declared, in direct rejection of the conservative refrain: “the commitments we make to each other through Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security...do not make us a nation of takers; they free us to take the risks that make this country great.” He declared climate change to be a cause no longer susceptible to argument, <a href="http://www.policyshop.net/home/2013/1/22/if-obama-is-serious-on-climate-change-heres-an-agenda.html">but to action</a>. And the powerful embrace he made of equality for gay Americans, for immigrants, for all who have been marginalized in one way or another was inspiring.</p>
<p>The President not only reminded us that we can improve our country by taking action together through government, but also in the streets and in our communities, through movement-building. From “Seneca Falls” to “Selma, and Stonewall”… It was invitation from a former community organizer to press him, and all those who work in the Capitol behind him, to fulfill our nation’s ideals.</p>
<p>In President Obama's inaugural address we heard perhaps the strongest argument for an activist government and the strongest evocation of progressive values from the President to date. It is an address that will resonate and uplift future generations of progressives and serves as a rallying call for those in the fight today. It was a regenerative narrative that, after four years of a deadlocked Congress, Americans needed to hear. And it needs our support.</p>
</div></div></div>Fri, 25 Jan 2013 15:53:20 +0000216628 at http://prospect.orgMiles RapoportUnderstand the Democracy Is the Core Issuehttp://prospect.org/article/understand-democracy-core-issue
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"> <p><strong><em>This piece is part of the </em>Prospect'<em>s series on progressives' strategy over the next 40 years. To read the introduction, click <a href="http://prospect.org/article/strategic-plan-liberals">here</a>.</em></strong></p>
<p align="left">Making our democracy vibrant, inclusive, and effective has to be a critical part of the progressive project for the next 40 years. Progressives need to take two leaps of understanding. The first is that the groups already working on individual democracy issues must embrace a multi-faceted democracy agenda that includes voting rights, campaign-finance reform, and consistent civic engagement. The second is that progressives working on other issues need to recognize that the distortions and failures of our democracy are a constant and daunting impediment to better outcomes in every issue arena. Democracy is not a side issue; it cannot just belong to “money and politics activists” or “voting-rights activists.” It is core to our success in the future.</p>
<p>Here’s what must be done.</p>
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<ul><li>Let everyone in. The number of roadblocks our system places in front of citizens who want to vote is shocking. Removing those roadblocks is possible and necessary. In the short term, states where Democrats hold the governorship and have legislative majorities should adopt a comprehensive system of access that combines mail-in voting, full implementation of the National Voter Registration Act (the “Motor Voter Act”), early voting, same-day registration, restoration of voting rights to all citizens with felony convictions once they leave prison, and pre-registration of young people at 17 in every high school. At the federal level, the Voter Empowerment Act, crafted by the Congressional Black and Congressional Progressive caucuses, embodies many of these components. If the Supreme Court restricts or guts Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, an immediate and energetic response will be required. In the long term, a national system of universal and automatic voter registration, complete with a national identification card (and a reformed immigration system) should be our goal. In their role as laboratories, some states should adopt mandatory voting with an opt-out (those aghast should think about our jury-service system). As we consider doing all this, we should work to nationalize election standards that guarantee uniform access and to create a federal agency with the funding, technical resources, and authority to enforce those standards.</li>
</ul><ul><li>Keep money at bay. Bringing every citizen into the electoral process may be the strongest antidote to the flood of money in the system. But we cannot accept the political and judicial activism that has eviscerated almost every effort to manage the role of money in our politics, despite clear evidence that people all along the political spectrum believe money is running amok. Short term, at the state level, public-financing regimes need to be passed and then defended, expanding the jurisprudence on their behalf as steadfastly as the right has attacked them. Nationally, congressional passage of the Fair Elections Now Act, along with restoring the presidential public-financing system to functionality, must be high priorities.</li>
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<ul><li>Promote engagement. This is a softer, less quantifiable strategy, but engagement of citizens in decision-making all year long is critical to a progressive agenda. Disengagement from government leads to distrust and alienation from politics, and it’s been one of the most potent tools in the right-wing arsenal. Continuous and constructive engagement can animate democracy and increase support for the robust role of government. Engagement can take many forms: participatory budgeting, community and national service, civic education, issue-based organizing, large and small community--based deliberation projects. But in whatever form, engagement builds on the kind of communitarian spirit intrinsic to American cultural history.</li>
</ul><p>We won’t win a liberal agenda unless we make democracy thrive. That the right understands this is evident in its assault on voting rights and campaign-finance regulations. We need to be equally aggressive in fighting for a democracy that represents everyone. </p>
</div></div></div>Wed, 05 Dec 2012 14:21:17 +0000216088 at http://prospect.orgMiles Rapoport